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Title: The Bontoc Igorot
Author: Albert Ernest Jenks
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BONTOC IGOROT ***
Produced by Jeroen Hellingman
Page 2

2. Group of prominent men, Bontoc pueblo.
Photo by Jenks.
The Bontoc Igorot
Albert Ernest Jenks
Manila 1905
Page 3
Letter of Transmittal
Department of the Interior, The Ethnological Survey,
Manila, February 3, 1904.
Sir: I have the honor to submit a study of the Bontoc Igorot made for this Survey during
the year 1903. It is transmitted with the recommendation that it be published as Volume I

3. of a series of scientific studies to be issued by The Ethnological Survey for the Philippine
Islands.
Respectfully,
Albert Ernst Jenks,
Chief of The Ethnological Survey.
Hon. Dean C. Worcester, Secretary of the Interior, Manila, P. I. Page 5
Table of Contents
• Letter of Transmittal
• Illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction
• The Igorot Culture Group
o Igorot land
o Igorot peoples
• The Bontoc Culture Group
o Bontoc culture area
o Marks of Bontoc culture
o The Bontoc man
Introduction
Historical sketch
Somatology
• General Social Life
o The pueblo
Ato
o The family
Childbirth
Twins
Abortion
Child
Life in olag
Marriage
The aged
o Sickness, disease, and remedies
o Death and burial
• Economic Life
o Production
Natural production
Cultural production
Division of labor

4. Wages, and exchange of labor
o Distribution
Theft
Conquest
o Consumption
Foods
Beverages
Salt
Sugar
Meals and mealtime
o Transportation
o Commerce
Barter
Sale
Medium of exchange
Measure of exchange value
Standard of value
Trade routes
Trade languages and traders
Stages of commerce
o Property right
Personal property of individual
Personal property of group
Real property of individual
Real property of group
Public property
Sale of property
Rent, loan, and lease of property
o Inheritance and bequest
o Tribute, tax, and “rake off”
• Political Life and Control
o Crimes, detection and punishment
• War and Head-Hunting
• Æsthetic Life
o Dress
o Decoration
Tattoo
o Music
Instrumental music
Vocal music
o Dancing
o Games
o Formalities
• Religion
o Spirit belief
o Exorcist

5. o Lumawig, the Supreme Being
o “Changers” in religion
o Priesthood
o Sacred days
o Ceremonials
Ceremonies connected with agriculture
Ceremonies connected with climate
Ceremonies connected with head taking
Ceremony connected with ato
• Mental Life
o Actual knowledge
Mensuration
o Folk tales
The sun man and moon woman; or, origin of head-hunting
Origin of coling, the serpent eagle
Origin of tilin, the ricebird
Origin of kaag, the monkey
Origin of gayyang, the crow, and fanias, the large lizard
Owug, the snake
Who took my father’s head?
• Language
o Introduction
o Alphabet
o Linguistic inconsistencies
o Nouns
Pronouns
o Verbs
o Comparative vocabularies
o Bontoc vocabulary
English, with Bontoc equivalent
• Plates
Page 9
Illustrations
• Group of prominent men, Bontoc pueblo
• Sketch map of the Philippine Archipelago
• Sketch map of northern Luzon
• Sketch map of Bontoc culture area
• Section of the last long climb from Cervantes to Bontoc
• Tilud pass, east side
• A glimpse of Igorot land
• Ba-lu′-gan pueblo surrounded by rice sementeras
• Pueblo of Sagada

6. • The entrance to Bontoc pueblo
• Ku-lo-ku′-lo of Mayinit pueblo
• O-gang′-ga of Samoki pueblo
• Ku-lo-ku′-lo of Mayinit pueblo
• Bon-gao′ of Alap pueblo
• Bo-da′-da of Samoki pueblo
• U-dao′ of Bontoc pueblo
• Young woman of Bontoc pueblo
• Zag-tag′-an of Bontoc pueblo
• Ka-nay′-u of Bontoc pueblo
• Lang′-sa of Bontoc pueblo
• Sĭt-li′-nĭn of Bontoc pueblo
• Pĭt-ta′-pĭt of Bontoc pueblo
• Girls of Bontoc pueblo
• Blind woman of Bontoc pueblo
• Blind Ta-u′-li of Samoki pueblo
• Deformed feet of Bontoc men
• Bontoc pueblo viewed from Samoki
• Samoki pueblo viewed from Bontoc
• Plat of Bontoc pueblo, showing ato divisions
• Plat of section of a′-to Si-pa′-at
• Pa-ba-fu′-nan of a′-to Fi′-lĭg
• Fa′-wi of a′-to Si-pa′-at
• Fa′-wi of a′-to Cho′-ko
• O′-lâg
• Bontoc dwelling, the fay′-ü
• Timbers for a building seasoning in the mountains
• Fay′-ü showing open door
• Bontoc dwelling, the Kat-yu′-fong, a widow's house, showing pigpens which
extend beneath it
• “In the shade of the low, projecting roof”
• “The mother who has come down with her babe on her back for an olla of water”
• The baby tenders
• Sam-kad′s' death chair
• Pine coffins
• The burial of Som-kad′
• Bûg-ti′ with his wild-cock snare
• Wire cock snare set, with lure cock in center
• Wild-cat caught in the snare kok-o′-lâng
• The bird snare Lĭng-ang′. (Snare set.) (Snare sprung.)
• Trap fishing
• Emptying the fish trap
• Fisherman examining his ob-o′-fu
• Rice sementeras at transplanting season
• Banawi rice sementeras
• A terrace wall

7. • Women weeding a terrace wall at soil-turning season
• Partial view of Bontoc irrigating works
• The main dam, showing irrigation troughs beyond
• River irrigation scheme
• Irrigating ditch which feeds the troughs secured to the mountain side shown at the
left
• Turning the soil in a water-filed sementera, showing women transplanting rice
• Mud-spattered soil turners
• Soil turners tramping the turned soil smooth and soft
• Bontoc camote beds
• Men crossing the river with pig manure to fertilize the rice sementeras
• Woman digging her final camote crop and working dead grass beneath the soil for
fertilizer
• The rice seed beds at transplanting time, with granaries immediately beyond
• Women transplanting rice
• The bird scarers, Ki′-lao, floating over a field of ripening rice
• An outlook to guard against wild hogs
• Harvesting the rice
• Two harvesters
• Camote harvest
• Rice granaries
• Bunches of palay curing on the roof of a dwelling
• Granaries
• Carrying home the camotes
• Philippine carabaos
• Bontoc pigpens
• Cage in which fowls are shut at night
• Hats and headband
• (a) The bag pocket carried in front; (b) The rain hat
• Cotton blankets woven by Igorot in the western part of the Bontoc area
• Kambulo bark-fiber blankets
• Woman spinning thread on her naked thigh
• Lepanto Igorot woman weaving
• Wooden “pig pails”
• Gourd and wooden spoons
• Samoki potters at the clay pit
• Transporting clay from the pit to the pueblo
• (a) Macerating the clays in a wooden mortar; (b) Beginning a pot
• Shaping the rim of a pot
• Expanding the bowl of a pot
• Smoothing and finishing a sun-dried pot
• Woman's large transportation basket and winnowing tray
• Household baskets (sûg-fi′, fa-lo′-ko, ki′-ûg, ko′-lûg)
• The traveling basket; so-called “head basket”
• Bontoc shields
• Bontoc shields

8. • The Kalinga shields
• Banawi shield, front and back
• Bontoc war spears (fal-fĕg′)
• Spears (fan′-kao and kay-yan′)
• Bontoc battle-axes, with bajuco ferrules
• Bontoc battle-axes, with steel ferrules
• The Balbelasan or northern battle-ax
• Agawa clay pipe maker
• Agawa clay pipes. (Those in the lower row are finished.)
• Finished Agawa clay pipes, with stems
• Roll of beeswax and three wax pipe models
• Metal pipe makers
• Metal pipes. (The lower row shows poorly the “anito” pipe.)
• Children paring camotes
• Women threshing rice
• Gourd for storing salt meats
• Bamboo tube for carrying basi
• Mayinit pueblo. (Long salt houses in the foreground.)
• (a) Woman washing salt; (b) salt-incrusted rocks
• Mayinit salt producer preparing salt cakes for baking
• A cane-sugar mill
• Methods of transportation
• Man's transportation basket (ki-ma′-ta)
• Woman's transportation baskets
• Women burden bearers
• (a) Tulubin men bringing home salt; (b) Samoki potters with ware
• Mayinit women on the trail to Bontoc to sell palay
• A ba′-si vender
• Mak′-lan, a Bontoc warrior
• Ko′-mĭs on war trail between Samoki and Tulubin
• “Anito head” post in a Ko′-mĭs
• The warrior's attack
• Battle-axes
• A head dance
• Ceremonial rice threshing in Samoki pueblo during the celebration of a captured
head
• A fa′-wi, where skulls are kept
• Soot-blackened human skulls from ato Sigichan
• A beheaded human body on its way to burial
• Burial of a beheaded man in Banawi
• Man's headdress
• An ear plug of sugar-cane leaves
• Bead headdress
• Woman's bustle-like girdle
• Igorot woman, showing rolls of hair
• The “switch” held in place by beads

9. • A tattooed Bontoc man
• Two well-done tattooes. (one man bears the jaw band and the other the cheek
crosses.)
• An elaborate tattoo
• A simple tattoo
• Bontoc woman's tattoo. (a) old; (b) new/Jenks
• An elaborate Banawi tattoo
• Tattoo of a Banawi woman
• Gang′-sa, showing human-jaw handle
• A dance, with contorting head-ax dancer in the center
• A dance, with head-ax dancer at the right
• The foundation of Lumawig's house in Bontoc
• Sacred grove (Pa-pa-tay′ ad so-kok′)
Page 13
Preface
After an expedition of two months in September, October, and November, 1902, among
the people of northern Luzon it was decided that the Igorot of Bontoc pueblo, in the
Province of Lepanto-Bontoc, are as typical of the primitive mountain agriculturist of
Luzon as any group visited, and that ethnologic investigations directed from Bontoc
pueblo would enable the investigator to show the culture of the primitive mountaineer of
Luzon as well as or better than investigations centered elsewhere.
Accompanied by Mrs. Jenks, the writer took up residence in Bontoc pueblo the 1st of
January, 1903, and remained five months. The following data were gathered during that
Bontoc residence, the previous expedition of two months, and a residence of about six
weeks among the Benguet Igorot.
The accompanying illustrations are mainly from photographs. Some of them were taken
in April, 1903, by Hon. Dean C. Worcester, Secretary of the Interior; others are the work
of Mr. Charles Martin, Government photographer, and were taken in January, 1903; the
others were made by the writer to supplement those taken by Mr. Martin, whose time was
limited in the area. Credit for each photograph is given with the halftone as it appears.
I wish to express my gratitude for the many favors of the only other Americans living in
Bontoc Province during my stay there, namely, Lieutenant-Governor Truman K. Hunt,
M.D.; Constabulary Lieutenant (now Captain) Elmer A. Eckman; and Mr. William F.
Smith, American teacher.
In the following pages native words have their syllabic divisions shown by hyphens and
their accented syllables and vowels marked in the various sections wherein the words are
considered technically for the first time, and also in the vocabulary in the last chapter. In
all other places they are unmarked. A later study of the language may show that errors

10. have been made in writing sentences, since it was not always possible to get a consistent
answer to the question as to what part of a sentence constitutes Page 14a single word, and
time was too limited for any extensive language study. The following alphabet has been
used in writing native words.
• a as in far; Spanish ramo
• â as in law; as o in French or
• ay as ai in aisle; Spanish hay
• ao as ou in out; as au in Spanish auto
• b as in bad; Spanish bajar
• ch as in check; Spanish chico
• d as in dog; Spanish dar
• e as in they; Spanish hallé
• ĕ as in then; Spanish comen
• f as in fight; Spanish firmar
• g as in go; Spanish gozar
• h as in he; Tagalog bahay
• i as in pique; Spanish hijo
• ĭ as in pick
• k as in keen
• l as in lamb; Spanish lente
• m as in man; Spanish menos
• n as in now; Spanish jabon
• ng as in finger; Spanish lengua
• o as in note; Spanish nosotros
• oi as in boil
• p as in poor; Spanish pero
• q as ch in German ich
• s as in sauce; Spanish sordo
• sh as in shall; as ch in French charmer
• t as in touch; Spanish tomar
• u as in rule; Spanish uno
• û as in but
• ü as in German kühl
• v as in valve; Spanish volver
• w as in will; nearly as ou in French oui
• y as in you; Spanish ya
It seems not improper to say a word here regarding some of my commonest impressions
of the Bontoc Igorot.
Physically he is a clean-limbed, well-built, dark-brown man of medium stature, with no
evidence of degeneracy. He belongs to that extensive stock of primitive people of which
the Malay is the most commonly named. I do not believe he has received any of his
characteristics, as a group, from either the Chinese or Japanese, though this theory has
frequently been presented. The Bontoc man would be a savage if it were not that his

11. geographic location compelled him to become an agriculturist; necessity drove him to
this art of peace. In everyday life his actions are deliberate, but he is not lazy. He is
remarkably industrious for a primitive man. In his agricultural labors he has strength,
determination, and endurance. On the trail, as a cargador or burden bearer for Americans,
he is patient and uncomplaining, and earns his wage in the sweat of his brow. His social
life is lowly, and before marriage is most Page 15primitive; but a man has only one wife,
to whom he is usually faithful. The social group is decidedly democratic; there are no
slaves. The people are neither drunkards, gamblers, nor “sportsmen.” There is little
“color” in the life of the Igorot; he is not very inventive and seems to have little
imagination. His chief recreation—certainly his most-enjoyed and highly prized
recreation—is head-hunting. But head-hunting is not the passion with him that it is with
many Malay peoples.
His religion is at base the most primitive religion known—animism, or spirit belief—but
he has somewhere grasped the idea of one god, and has made this belief in a crude way a
part of his life.
He is a very likable man, and there is little about his primitiveness that is repulsive. He is
of a kindly disposition, is not servile, and is generally trustworthy. He has a strong sense
of humor. He is decidedly friendly to the American, whose superiority he recognizes and
whose methods he desires to learn. The boys in school are quick and bright, and their
teacher pronounces them superior to Indian and Mexican children he has taught in
Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico.1
Briefly, I believe in the future development of the Bontoc Igorot for the following
reasons: He has an exceptionally fine physique for his stature and has no vices to destroy
his body. He has courage which no one who knows him seems ever to think of
questioning; he is industrious, has a bright mind, and is willing to learn. His
institutions—governmental, religious, and social—are not radically opposed to those of
modern civilization—as, for instance, are many institutions of the Mohammedanized
people of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago—but are such, it seems to me, as will quite
readily yield to or associate themselves with modern institutions.
I recall with great pleasure the months spent in Bontoc pueblo, and I have a most sincere
interest in and respect for the Bontoc Igorot as a man. Page 17
1 The proof sheets of this paper came to me at the Philippine Exposition, St. Louis, Mo.,
July, 1904. At that time Miss Maria del Pilar Zamora, a Filipino teacher in charge of the
model school at the Exposition, told me the Igorot children are the brightest and most
intelligent of all the Filipino children in the model school. In that school are children
from several tribes or groups, including Christians, Mohammedans, and pagans.
Introduction

12. The readers of this monograph are familiar with the geographic location of the Philippine
Archipelago. However, to have the facts clearly in mind, it will be stated that the group
lies entirely within the north torrid zone, extending from 4° 40′ northward to 21° 3′ and
from 116° 40′ to 126° 34′ east longitude. It is thus about 1,000 miles from north to south
and 550 miles from east to west. The Pacific Ocean washes its eastern shores, the Sea of
Celebes its southern, and the China Sea its western and northern shores. It is about 630
kilometers, or 400 miles, from the China coast, and lies due east from French Indo-China.
The Batanes group of islands, stretching north of Luzon, has members nearer Formosa
than Luzon. On the southwest Borneo is sighted from Philippine territory.
Briefly, it may be said the Archipelago belongs to Asia—geologically, zoölogically, and
botanically—rather than to Oceania, and that, apparently, the entire Archipelago has
shared a common origin and existence. There is evidence that it was connected with the
mainland by solid earth in the early or Middle Tertiary. For a long geologic time the land
was low and swampy. At the end of the Eocene a great upheaval occurred; there were
foldings and crumplings, igneous rock was thrust into the distorted mass, and the islands
were considerably elevated above the sea. During the latter part of the Tertiary period the
lands seem to have subsided and to have been separated from the mainland.
About the close of the subsidence eruptions began which are continued to the present by
such volcanoes as Taal and Mayon in Luzon and Apo in Mindanao. No further
subsidence appears to have occurred after the close of the Tertiary, though the gradual
elevation beginning then had many lapses, as is evidenced by the numerous sea beaches
often seen one above the other in horizontal tiers. The elevation continues to-day in an
almost invisible way. The Islands have been greatly enlarged during the elevation by the
constant building of coral around the submerged shores.
It is believed that man had appeared in the great Malay Archipelago before this elevation
began. It is thought by some that he was in the Page 18Philippines in the later Tertiary,
but there are no data as yet throwing light on this question.
To-day the Archipelago lies like a large net in the natural pathway of people fleeing
themselves from the supposed birthplace of the primitive Malayan stock, namely, from
Java, Sumatra, and the adjacent Malay Peninsula, or, more likely, the larger mainland. It
spreads over a large area, and is well fitted by its numerous islands—some 3,100—and its
innumerable bays and coastal pockets to catch up and hold a primitive, seafaring people.
There are and long have been daring Malayan pirates, and there is to-day among the
southern islands a numerous class—the Samal—living most of the time on the sea, yet
they all keep close to land, except in time of calm, and when a storm is brewing they
strike out straight for the nearest shore like scared children. The ocean currents and the
monsoons have been greatly instrumental in driving different people through the seas into
the Philippine net.1 The Tagakola on the west coast of the Gulf of Davao, Mindanao,
have a tradition that they are descendants of men cast on their present shores from a
distant land and of the Manobo women of the territory. The Bagobo, also in the Gulf of
Davao, claim they came to their present home in a few boats generations ago. They

13. purposely left their former land to flee from head-hunting, a practice in Page 19their
earlier home, but one they do not follow in Mindanao. What per cent of the people
coming originally to the Archipelago was castaway, nomadic, or immigrant it is
impossible to judge, but there have doubtless also been many systematic and prolonged
migrations from nearby lands, as from Borneo, Celebes, Sangir, etc.
Primitive man is represented in the Philippines to-day not alone by one of the lowest
natural types of savage man the historic world has looked upon—the small, dark-brown,
bearded, “crisp-woolly”-haired Negritos—but by some thirty distinct primitive Malayan
tribes or dialect groups, among which are believed to be some of the lowest of the stock
in existence.
In northern Luzon is the Igorot, a typical primitive Malayan. He is a muscular, smooth-
faced, brown man of a type between the delicate and the coarse. In Mindoro the
Mangiyan is found, an especially lowly Malayan, who may prove to be a true savage in
culture. In Mindanao is the slender, delicate, smooth-faced brown man of which the
Subano, in the western part, is typical. There are the Bagobo and the extensive Manobo
of eastern Mindanao in the neighborhood of the Gulf of Davao, the latter people
following the Agusan River practically to the north coast of Mindanao. In southeastern
Mindanao, in the vicinity of Mount Apo and also north of the Gulf of Davao, are the Ata.
They are a scattered people and evidently a Negrito and primitive Malayan mixture. In
Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Isabela, and perhaps Principe, of Luzon, are the Ibilao.
They are a slender, delicate, bearded people, with an artistic nature quite different from
any other now known in the island, but somewhat like that of the Ata of Mindanao. Their
artistic wood productions suggest the incised work of distant dwellers of the Pacific, as
that of the people of New Guinea, Fiji Islands, or Hervey Islands. The seven so-called
Christian tribes,2 occupying considerable areas in the coastwise lands and low plains of
most of the larger islands of the Archipelago, represent migrations to the Archipelago
subsequent to those of the Igorot and comparable tribes.
The last migrations of brown men into the Archipelago are historic. The Spaniard
discovered the inward flow of the large Samal Moro group—after his arrival in the
sixteenth century. The movement of this nomadic “Sea Gipsy” Samal has not ceased to-
day, but continues to flow in and out among the small southern islands.
Besides the peoples here cited there are a score of others scattered about the Archipelago,
representing many grades of primitive culture, Page 20but those mentioned are sufficient
to suggest that the Islands have been very effective in gathering up and holding divers
groups of primitive men.3
1 There are many instances on record showing that people have been planted on Pacific
shores many hundred miles from their native land. It seems that the primitive Pacific
Islanders have sent people adrift from their shores, thus adding a rational cause to those
many fortuitous causes for the interisland migration of small groups of individuals.

14. “In 1696, two canoes were driven from Ancarso to one of the Philippine Islands, a
distance of eight hundred miles. They had run before the wind for seventy days together,
sailing from east to west. Thirty-five had embarked, but five had died from the effects of
privation and fatigue during the voyage, and one shortly after their arrival. In 1720, two
canoes were drifted from a remote distance to one of the Marian Islands. Captain Cook
found, in the island of Wateo Atiu, inhabitants of Tahiti, who had been drifted by
contrary wind in a canoe, from some islands to the eastward, unknown to the natives.
Several parties have, within the last few years, (prior to 1834), reached the Tahitian
shores from islands to the eastward, of which the Society Islands had never before heard.
In 1820, a canoe arrived at Maurua, about thirty miles west of Borabora, which had come
from Rurutu, one of the Austral Islands. This vessel had been at sea between a fortnight
and three weeks; and, considering its route, must have sailed seven or eight hundred
miles. A more recent instance occurred in 1824: a boat belonging to Mr. Williams of
Raiatea left that island with a westerly wind for Tahiti. The wind changed after the boat
was out of sight of land. They were driven to the island of Atiu, a distance of nearly eight
hundred miles in a south-westerly direction, where they were discovered several months
afterwards. Another boat, belonging to Mr. Barff of Huahine, was passing between that
island and Tahiti about the same time, and has never since been heard of; and subsequent
instances of equally distant and perilous voyages in canoes or open boats might be
cited.”—(Ellis) Polynesian Researches, vol. I, p. 125.
“In the year 1799, when Finow, a Friendly Island chief, acquired the supreme power in
that most interesting group of islands, after a bloody and calamitous civil war, in which
his enemies were completely overpowered, the barbarian forced a number of the
vanquished to embark in their canoes and put to sea; and during the revolution that issued
in the subversion of paganism in Otaheite, the rebel chiefs threatened to treat the English
missionaries and their families in a similar way. In short, the atrocious practice is,
agreeably to the Scotch law phrase, “use and wont,” in the South Sea Islands.”—John
Dunmore Lang, View of the Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation, London,
1834, pp. 62, 63.
2 The Christianized dialect groups are: Bikol, of southern Luzon and adjacent islands;
Cagayan, of the Cagayan Valley of Luzon; Ilokano, of the west coast of northern Luzon;
Pampango and Pangasinan, of the central plain of Luzon; Tagalog, of the central area
South of the two preceding; and the Visayan, of the central islands and northern
Mindanao.
3 No pretense is now made for permanency either in the classification of the many groups
of primitive people in the Philippines or for the nomenclature of these various groups; but
the groups of non-Christian people in the Archipelago, as they are to-day styled in a more
or less permanent way by The Ethnological Survey, are as follows: Ata, north and west of
Gulf of Davao in southeastern Mindanao; Batak, of Paragua; Bilan, in the southern
highlands west of Gulf of Davao, Mindanao; Bagobo, of west coast of Gulf of Davao,
Mindanao; Bukidnon, of Negros; Ibilao or Ilongot, of eastern central Luzon; Igorot, of
northern Luzon; the Lanao Moro, occupying the central territory of Mindanao between
the Bays of Iligan and Illana, including Lake Lanao; Maguindanao Moro, extending in a

15. band southeast from Cotabato, Mindanao, toward Sarangani Bay, including Lakes
Liguasan and Buluan; Mandaya, of southeastern Mindanao east of Gulf of Davao;
Mangiyan, of Mindoro: Manobo, probably the most numerous tribe in Mindanao,
occupying the valley of the Agusan River draining northward into Butuan Bay and the
extensive table-land west of that river, besides in isolated territories extending to both the
east and west coasts of the large body of land between Gulf of Davao and Illana Bay;
Negrito, of several areas of wild mountains in Luzon, Negros, Mindanao, and other
smaller islands; the Sama, of the islands in Gulf of Davao, Mindanao; Samal Moro, of
scattered coastal areas in southern Mindanao, besides the eastern and southern islands of
the Sulu or Jolo Archipelago; the Subano, probably the second largest tribal group in
Mindanao, occupying all the mountain territory west of the narrow neck of land between
Illana Bay and Pangul Bay; the Sulu Moro, of Jolo Island; the Tagabili, on the southern
coast of Mindanao northwest of Sarangani Bay; the Tagakola, along the central part of
the west coast of Gulf of Davao, Mindanao; Tagbanua, of Paragua; Tinguian, of western
northern Luzon; Tiruray, south of Cotabato, Mindanao; Yakan Moro, in the mountainous
interior of Basilan Island, off the Mindanao coast at Zamboanga. Under the names of
these large groups must be included many more smaller dialect groups whose precise
relationship may not now be confidently stated. For instance, the large Igorot group is
composed of many smaller groups of different dialects besides that of the Bontoc Igorot
of which this paper treats.
Page 21Page 22Page 23
Chapter I
The Igorot Culture Group
Igorot land
Northern Luzon, or Igorot land, is by far the largest area in the Philippine Archipelago
having any semblance of regularity. It is roughly rectangular in form, extending two and
one-half degrees north and south and two degrees east and west.
There are two prominent geographic features in northern Luzon. One is the beautifully
picturesque mountain system, the Caraballos, the most important range of which is the
Caraballos Occidentales, extending north and south throughout the western part of the
territory. This range is the famous “Cordillera Central” for about three-quarters of its
extent northward, beyond which it is known as “Cordillera del Norte.” The other
prominent feature is the extensive drainage system of the eastern part, the Rio Grande de
Cagayan draining northward into the China Sea about two-thirds of the territory of
northern Luzon. It is the largest drainage system and the largest river in the Archipelago.
The surface of northern Luzon is made up of four distinct types. First is the coastal
plain—a consistently narrow strip of land, generally not over 3 or 4 miles wide. The soil

16. is sandy silt with a considerable admixture of vegetable matter. In some places it is loose,
and shifts readily before the winds; here and there are stretches of alluvial clay loam. The
sandy areas are often covered with coconut trees, and the alluvial deposits along the
rivers frequently become beds of nipa palm as far back as tide water. The plain areas are
generally poorly watered except during the rainy season, having only the streams of the
steep mountains passing through them. These river beds are broad, “quicky,” impassable
torrents in the rainy season, and are shallow or practically dry during half the year, with
only a narrow, lazy thread flowing among the bowlders.
This plain area on the west coast is the undisputed dwelling place of the Christian
Ilokano, occupying pueblos in Union, Ilokos Sur, and Ilokos Norte Provinces. Almost
nothing is known of the eastern coastal plain area. It is believed to be extremely narrow,
and has at least one Page 24pueblo, of Christianized Tagalog—the famous Palanan, the
scene of Aguinaldo’s capture.
The second type of surface is the coastal hill area. It extends from the coastal plain
irregularly back to the mountains, and is thought to be much narrower on the eastern
coast than on the western—in fact, it may be quite absent on the eastern. It is the remains
of a tilted plain sloping seaward from an altitude of about 1,000 feet to one of, say, 100
feet, and its hilly nature is due to erosion. These hills are generally covered only with
grasses; the sheltered moister places often produce rank growths of tall, coarse cogon
grass.1 The soil varies from dark clay loam through the sandy loams to quite extensive
deposits of coarse gravel. The level stretches in the hills on the west coast are generally in
the possession of the Christian peoples, though here and there are small pueblos of the
large Igorot group. The Igorot in these pueblos are undergoing transformation, and quite
generally wear clothing similar to that of the Ilokano.
The third type of surface is the mountain country—the “temperate zone of the Tropics”; it
is the habitat of the Igorot. From the western coastal hill area the mountains rise abruptly
in parallel ranges lying in a general north and south direction, and they subside only in
the foothills west of the great level bottom land bordering the Rio Grande de Cagayan.
The Cordillera Central is as fair and about as varied a mountain country as the tropic sun
shines on. It has mountains up which one may climb from tropic forest jungles into open,
pine-forested parks, and up again into the dense tropic forest, with its drapery of vines, its
varied hanging orchids, and its graceful, lilting fern trees. It has mountains forested to the
upper rim on one side with tropic jungle and on the other with sturdy pine trees; at the
crest line the children of the Tropics meet and intermingle with those of the temperate
zone. There are gigantic, rolling, bare backs whose only covering is the carpet of grass
periodically green and brown. There are long, rambling, skeleton ranges with here and
there pine forests gradually creeping up the sides to the crests. There are solitary
volcanoes, now extinct, standing like things purposely let alone when nature humbled the
surrounding earth. There are sculptured lime rocks, cities of them, with gray hovels and
mansions and cathedrals.
The mountains present one interesting geologic feature. The “hiker” is repeatedly
delighted to find his trail passing quite easily from one peak or ascent to another over a

17. natural connecting embankment. On either side of this connecting ridge is the head of a
deep, steep-walled canyon; the ridge is only a few hundred feet broad at base, and only
half a dozen to twenty feet wide at the top. These ridges invariably have the appearance
of being composed of soft earth, and not of rock. They are Page 25appreciated by the
primitive man, who takes advantage of them as of bridges.
The mountains are well watered; the summits of most of the mountains have perpetual
springs of pure, cool waters. On the very tops of some there are occasional perpetual
water holes ranging from 10 to 100 feet across. These holes have neither surface outlet
nor inlet; there are two such within two hours of Bontoc pueblo. They are the favorite
wallowing places of the carabao, the so-called “water buffalo,”2 both the wild and the
half-domesticated animals.
The mountain streams are generally in deep gorges winding in and out between the sharp
folds of the mountains. Their beds are strewn with bowlders, often of immense size,
which have withstood the wearing of waters and storms. During the rainy season the
streams racing between the bases of two mountain ridges are maddened torrents. Some
streams, born and fed on the very peaks, tumble 100, 500, even 1,500 feet over
precipices, landing white as snow in the merciless torrent at the mountain base. During
the dry season the rivers are fordable at frequent intervals, but during the rainy season,
beginning in the Cordillera Central in June and lasting well through October, even the
natives hesitate often for a week at a time to cross them.
The absence of lakes is noteworthy in the mountain country of northern Luzon—in fact,
in all of northern Luzon. The two large lakes frequently shown on maps of Cagayan
Province, one east and one west of the Rio Grande de Cagayan near the eighteenth
parallel, are not known to exist, though it is probable there is some foundation for the
Spaniards’ belief in the existence of at least the eastern one. In the bottom land of the Rio
Grande de Cagayan, about six hours west of Cabagan Nuevo, near the provincial border
of Cagayan and Isabela, there were a hundred acres of land covered with shallow water
the last of October, 1902, just at the end of the dry season of the Cagayan Valley. The
surface was well covered with rank, coarse grasses and filled with aquatic plants,
especially with lilies. Apparently the waters were slowly receding, since the earth about
the margins was supporting the short, coarse grasses that tell of the gradual drying out of
soils once covered with water. In the mountains near Sagada, Bontoc Province, there is a
very small lake, and one or two others have been reported at Bontoc; but the mountains
must be said to be practically lakeless.
Another mountain range of northern Luzon, of which practically no details are known, is
the Sierra Madre, extending nearly the full length of the country close to the eastern
coast. It seems to be an unbroken, continuous range, and, as such, is the longest mountain
range in the Archipelago.
The fourth type of surface is the level areas. These areas lie mainly along the river
courses, and vary from a few rods in width to the valley Page 26of the Rio Grande de
Cagayan, which is often 50 miles in width, and probably more. There are, besides these

18. river valleys, varying tracts of level plains which may most correctly be termed mountain
table-lands. The limited mountain valleys and table-lands are the immediate home of the
Igorot. The valleys are worn by the streams, and, in turn, are built up, leveled, and
enriched by the sand and alluvium deposited annually by the floods. They are generally
open, grass-covered areas, though some have become densely forested since being left
above the high water of the streams.
The broad valley of the Rio Grande de Cagayan is not occupied by the Igorot. It is too
poorly watered and forested to meet his requirements. It is mainly a vast pasture,
supporting countless deer; along the foothills and the forest-grown creek and river
bottoms there are many wild hogs; and in some areas herds of wild carabaos and horses
are found. Near the main river is a numerous population of Christians. Many are Ilokano
imported originally by the tobacco companies to carry on the large tobacco plantations of
the valley, and the others are the native Cagayan.
The table-lands were once generally forested, but to-day many are deforested, undulating,
beautiful pastures. Some were cleared by the Igorot for agriculture, and doubtless others
by forest fires, such as one constantly sees during the dry season destroying the mountain
forests of northern Luzon.
General observations have not been made on the temperature and humidity of much of
the mountain country of northern Luzon. However, scientific observations have been
made and recorded for a series of about ten years at Baguio, Benguet Province, at an
altitude of 4,777 feet, and it is from the published data there gathered that the following
facts are gained.3 The temperature and rainfall are the average means deduced from
many years’ observations:
Month Mean temperature Number of rainy days Rainfall
°F Inches
January 63.5 1 0.06
February 62.1 2 0.57
March 66.9 3 1.46
April 70.5 1 0.32
May 68.3 16 4.02
June 67.2 26 12.55
July 66.5 26 14.43
August 64.6 31 37.03
September 67.0 23 11.90
October 67.0 13 4.95
November 68.2 13 2.52
December 66.0 16 5.47
Page 27

19. It is seen that April is the hottest month of the year and February is the coldest. The
absolute lowest temperature recorded is 42.10° Fahrenheit, noted February 18, 1902. Of
course the temperature varies considerably—a fact due largely to altitude and prevailing
winds. The height of the rainy season is in August, during which it rains every day, with
an average precipitation of 37.03 inches. Baguio is known as much rainier than many
other places in the Cordillera Central, yet it must be taken as more or less typical of the
entire mountain area of northern Luzon, throughout which the rainy season is very
uniform. Usually the days of the rainy season are beautiful and clear during the forenoon,
but all-day rains are not rare, and each season has two or three storms of pelting, driving
rain which continues without a break for four or five days.
Igorot peoples
In several languages of northern Luzon the word “Ĭg-o-rot′” means “mountain people.”
Dr. Pardo de Tavera says the word “Igorrote” is composed of the root word “golot,”
meaning, in Tagalog, “mountain chain,” and the prefix “i,” meaning “dweller in” or
“people of.” Morga in 1609 used the word as “Igolot;” early Spaniards also used the word
frequently as “Ygolotes”—and to-day some groups of the Igorot, as the Bontoc group, do
not pronounce the “r” sound, which common usage now puts in the word. The Spaniards
applied the term to the wild peoples of present Benguet and Lepanto Provinces, now a
short-haired, peaceful people. In after years its common application spread eastward to
the natives of the comandancia of Quiangan, in the present Province of Nueva Vizcaya,
and northward to those of Bontoc.
The word “Ĭg-o-rot′” is now adopted tentatively as the name of the extensive primitive
Malayan people of northern Luzon, because it is applied to a very large number of the
mountain people by themselves and also has a recognized usage in ethnologic and other
writings. Its form as “Ĭg-o-rot′” is adopted for both singular and plural, because it is both
natural and phonetic, and, because, so far as it is possible to do so, it is thought wise to
retain the simple native forms of such words as it seems necessary or best to incorporate
in our language, especially in scientific language.
The sixteenth degree of north latitude cuts across Luzon probably as far south as any
people of the Igorot group are now located. It is believed they occupy all the mountain
country northward in the island except the territory of the Ibilao in the southeastern part
of the area and some of the most inaccessible mountains in eastern Luzon, which are
occupied by Negritos.
There are from 150,000 to 225,000 Igorot in Igorot land. The census of the Archipelago
taken in 1903 will give the number as about 185,000. In the northern part of Pangasinan
Province, the southwestern part of Page 28the territory, there are reported about 3,150
pagan people under various local names, as “Igorrotes,” “Infieles” [pagans], and “Nuevos
Christianos.” In Benguet Province there are some 23,000, commonly known as “Benguet
Igorrotes.” In Union Province there are about 4,400 primitive people, generally called
“Igorrotes.” Ilokos Sur has nearly 8,000, half of whom are known to history as
“Tinguianes” and half as “Igorrotes.” The Province of Ilokos Norte has nearly 9,000,

20. which number is divided quite evenly between “Igorrotes,” “Tinguianes,” and “Infieles.”
Abra Province has in round numbers 13,500 pagan Malayans, most of whom are
historically known as “Alzados” and “Tinguianes.” These Tinguian ethnically belong to
the great Igorot group, and in northern Bontoc Province, where they are known as Itneg,
flow into and are not distinguishable from the Igorot; but no effort is made in this
monograph to cut the Tinguian asunder from the position they have gained in historic and
ethnologic writings as a separate people. The Province of Lepanto-Bontoc has, according
to records, about 70,500 “Igorrotes,” “Tinguianes,” and “Caylingas,” but I believe a more
careful census will show it has nearer 100,000. Nueva Ecija is reported to have half a
hundred “Tinguianes.” The Province of Nueva Vizcaya has some 46,000 people locally
and historically known as “Bunnayans,” a large group in the Spanish comandancia of
Quiangan; the “Silapanes,” also a large group of people closely associated with the
Bunayan; the Isinay, a small group in the southern part of the province; the Alamit, a
considerable group of Silipan people dwelling along the Alamit River in the comandancia
of Quiangan; and the small Ayangan group of the Bunayan people of Quiangan. Cagayan
Province has about 11,000 “Caylingas” and “Ipuyaos.” Isabela Province is reported as
having about 2,700 primitive Malayans of the Igorot group; they are historically known
as “Igorrotes,” “Gaddanes,” “Calingas,” and “Ifugaos.”
The following forms of the above names of different dialect groups of Ĭg-o-rot′ have been
adopted by The Ethnological Survey: Tĭn-gui-an′, Ka-lĭn′-ga, Bun-a-yan′, I-sa-nay′, A-la′-
mĭt, Sĭl-i-pan′, Ay-an′-gan, Ĭ-pu-kao′, and Gad-an′.
It is believed that all the mountain people of the northern half of Luzon, except the
Negritos, came to the island in some of the earliest of the movements that swept the
coasts of the Archipelago from the south and spread over the inland areas—succeeding
waves of people, having more culture, driving their cruder blood fellows farther inland.
Though originally of one blood, and though they are all to-day in a similar broad culture-
grade—that is, all are mountain agriculturists, and all are, or until recently have been,
head-hunters—yet it does not follow that the Igorot groups have to-day identical culture;
quite the contrary is true. There are many and wide differences even in important cultural
expressions which are due to environment, long isolation, and in some cases to Page
29ideas and processes borrowed from different neighboring peoples. Very misleading
statements have sometimes been made in regard to the Igorot—customs from different
groups have been jumbled together in one description until a man has been pictured who
can not be found anywhere. All except the most general statements are worse than wasted
unless a particular group is designated.
An illustration of some of the differences between groups of typical Igorot will make this
clearer. I select as examples the people of Bontoc and the adjoining Quiangan district in
northern Nueva Vizcaya Province, both of whom are commonly known as Igorot. It must
be noted that the people of both areas are practically unmodified by modern culture and
both are constant head-hunters. With scarcely one exception Bontoc pueblos are single
clusters of buildings; in Banawi pueblo of the Quiangan area there are eleven separate
groups of dwellings, each group situated on a prominence which may be easily protected
by the inhabitants against an enemy below them; and other Quiangan pueblos are

21. similarly built. As will be brought out in succeeding chapters, the social and political
institutions of the two peoples differ widely. In Bontoc the head weapon is a battle-ax, in
Quiangan it is a long knife. Most of the head-hunting practices of the two peoples are
different, especially as to the disposition of the skulls of the victims. Bontoc men wear
their hair long, and have developed a small pocket-hat to confine the hair and contain
small objects carried about; the men of Quiangan wear their hair short, have nothing
whatever of the nature of the pocket-hat, but have developed a unique hand bag which is
used as a pocket. In the Quiangan area a highly conventionalized wood-carving art has
developed—beautiful eating spoons with figures of men and women carved on the
handles and food bowls cut in animal figures are everywhere found; while in Bontoc only
the most crude and artless wood carving is made. In language there is such a difference
that Bontoc men who accompanied me into the northern part of the large Quiangan area,
only a long day from Bontoc pueblo, could not converse with Quiangan men, even about
such common things as travelers in a strange territory need to learn.
It is because of the many differences in cultural expressions between even small and
neighboring communities of the primitive people of the Philippine Archipelago that I
wish to be understood in this paper as speaking of the one group—the Bontoc Igorot
culture group; a group however, in every essential typical of the numerous Igorot peoples
of the mountains of northern Luzon. Page 30
1 Imperata arundicea.
2 Bubalus kerabau ferus (Nehring).
3 Pages 72–74 of the Report of the Director of the Philippine Weather Bureau, 1901–
1902; Part First, The Climate of Baguio (Benguet), by Rev. Fr. José Algué, S. J. (Manila,
Observatory Printing Office, 1902.)
Chapter II
The Bontoc Culture Group
Bontoc culture area
The Bontoc culture area nearly equals the old Spanish Distrito Politico-Militar of Bontoc,
presented to the American public in a Government publication in 1900.1
The Spanish Bontoc area was estimated about 4,500 square kilometers. This was
probably too large an estimate, and it is undoubtedly an overestimate for the Bontoc
culture area, the northern border of which is farther south than the border of the Spanish
Bontoc area.

22. The area is well in the center of northern Luzon and is cut off by watersheds from other
territory, except on the northeast. The most prominent of these watersheds is Polis
Mountain, extending along the eastern and southern sides of the area; it is supposed to
reach a height of over 7,000 feet. The western watershed is an undifferentiated range of
the Cordillera Central. To the north stretches a large area of the present Province of
Bontoc, though until 1903 most of that northern territory was embraced in the Province
of Abra. The Province of Isabela lies to the east; Nueva Vizcaya and Lepanto border the
area on the south, and Lepanto and Abra border it on the west.
The Bontoc culture area lies entirely in the mountains, and, with the exception of two
pueblos, it is all drained northeastward into the Rio Grande de Cagayan by one river, the
Rio Chico de Cagayan; but the Rio Sibbu, coursing more directly eastward, is a
considerable stream.
To-day one main trail enters Bontoc Province. It was originally built by the Spaniards,
and enters Bontoc pueblo from the southwest, leading up from Cervantes in Lepanto
Province. From Cervantes there are two trails to the coast. One passes southward through
Baguio in Benguet Province and then stretches westward, terminating on the coast at San
Fernando, in Union Province. The other, the one most commonly traveled to Bontoc,
passes to the northwest, terminating on the coast at Candon, in the Province of Ilokos Sur.
The main trail, entering Bontoc Page 31from Cervantes, passes through the pueblo and
extends to the northeast, quite closely following the trend of the Chico River. In Spanish
times it was seldom traveled farther than Bassao, but several parties of Americans have
been over it as far as the Rio Grande de Cagayan since November, 1902. A second trail,
also of Spanish origin, but now practically unused, enters the area from the south and
connects Bontoc pueblo, its northern terminus, with the valley of the Magat River far
south. It passes through the pueblos of Bayambang, Quiangan, and Banawi, in the
Province of Nueva Vizcaya.
The main trail is to-day passable for a horseman from the coast terminus to Tinglayan,
three days beyond Bontoc pueblo. Practically all other trails in the area are simply wild
footpaths of the Igorot. Candon, the coast terminus of the main trail, lies in the coastal
plain area about 4¼ miles from the sea. From the coast to the small pueblo of Concepcion
at the western base of the Cordillera Central is a half-day’s journey. The first half of the
trail passes over flat land, with here and there small pueblos surrounded by rice
sementeras. There are almost no forests. The latter half is through the coastal hill area,
and the trail frequently passes through small forests; it crosses several rivers, dangerous
to ford in the rainy season, and winds in and out among attractive hills bearing clumps of
graceful, plume-like bamboo.
From Concepcion the trail leads up the mountain to Tilud Pass, historic since the
insurrection because of the brave stand made there by the young, ill-fated General del
Pilar. The climb to Tilud Pass, from either side of the mountain, is one of the longest and
most tedious in northern Luzon. The trail frequently turns short on itself, so that the front
and rear parts of a pack train are traveling face to face, and one end is not more than eight
or ten rods above the other on the side of the mountain. The last view of the sea from the

23. Candon-Bontoc trail is obtained at Tilud Pass. From Concepcion to Angaki, at the base of
the mountain on the eastern side of the pass, the trail is about half a day long. From the
pass it is a ceaseless drop down the steep mountain, but affords the most charming views
of mountain scenery in northern Luzon. The shifting direction of the turning trail and the
various altitudes of the traveler present constantly changing scenes—mountains and
mountains ramble on before one. From Angaki to Cervantes the trail passes over
deforested rolling mountain land, with safe drinking water in only one small spring.
Many travelers who pass that part of the journey in the middle of the day complain loudly
of the heat and thirst experienced there.
Cervantes, said to be 70 miles from Candon, is the capital of the dual Province of
Lepanto-Bontoc. Bontoc pueblo lies inland only about 35 miles farther, but the greater
part of two days is usually required to reach it. Twenty minutes will carry a horseman
down the bluff from Cervantes, across the swift Abra—if the stream is fordable—and
start him on the eastward mountain climb. Page 32
The first pueblo beyond Cervantes is Cayan, the old Spanish capital of the district. About
twenty-five years ago the site was changed from Cayan to Cervantes because there was
not sufficient suitable land at Cayan. Cayan is about four hours from Cervantes, and
every foot of the trail is up the mountain. A short distance beyond Cayan the trail divides
to rejoin only at the outskirts of Bontoc pueblo; but the right-hand or “lower” trail is not
often traveled by horsemen. Up and up the mountain one climbs from about 1,800 feet at
Cervantes to about 6,000 feet among the pines, and then slowly descends, having crossed
the boundary line between Lepanto and Bontoc subprovinces to the pueblo of Bagnen—
the last one before the Bontoc culture area is entered. It is customary to spend the night
on the trail, as one goes into Bontoc, either at Bagnen or at Sagada, a pueblo about two
hours farther on.
Only along the top of the high mountain, before Bagnen is reached, does the trail pass
through a forest—otherwise it is always climbing up or winding about the mountains
deforested probably by fires. Practically all the immediate territory on the right hand of
the trail between Bagnen and Sagada is occupied by the beautifully terraced rice
sementeras of Balugan; the valley contains more than a thousand acres so cultivated. At
Sagada lime rocks—some eroded into gigantic, massive forms, others into fantastic spires
and domes—everywhere crop out from the grassy hills. Up and down the mountains the
trail leads, passing another small pine forest near Ankiling and Titipan, about four hours
from Bontoc, and then creeps on and at last through the terraced entrance way into the
mountain pocket where Bontoc pueblo lies, about 100 miles from the western coast, and,
by Government aneroid barometer, about 2,800 feet above the sea.
Marks of Bontoc culture
It is difficult and often impossible to state the essential difference in culture which
distinguishes one group of people from another. It is more difficult to draw lines of
distinction, for the culture of one group almost imperceptibly flows into that of another
adjoining it.

24. However, two fundamental institutions of the people of Bontoc seem to differ from those
of most adjoining people. One of these institutions has to do with the control of the
pueblo. Bontoc has not developed the headman—the “principal” of the Spaniard, the
“Bak-nan′” of the Benguet Igorot—the one rich man who becomes the pueblo, leader. In
Benguet Province the headman is found in every pueblo, and he is so powerful that he
often dominates half a dozen outlying barrios to the extent that he receives a large share,
often one-half, of the output of all the productive labors of the barrio. Immediately north
of the Bontoc area, in Tinglayan, the headman is again found. He has no place whatever
in Bontoc. The control of the pueblos of the Bontoc area is in the hands of groups of old
men; however, each group, called “intugtukan,” Page 33operates only within a single
political and geographic portion of the pueblo, so that no one group has in charge the
control of the pueblo. The pueblo is a loose federation of smaller political groups.
The other institution is a social development. It is the olag, an institution of trial marriage.
It is not known to exist among adjoining people, but is found throughout the area in
which the intugtukan exists; they are apparently coextensive. I was repeatedly informed
that the olag is not found in the Banawi area south of Bontoc, or in the Tinglayan area
east, or among the Tinguian to the north, or in Benguet far southwest, or in Lepanto
immediately southwest—though I have some reason to believe that both the intugtukan
and olag exist in a crumbling way among certain Lepanto Igorot.
Besides these two institutions there are other differing marks of culture between the
Bontoc area and adjoining people. Some of these were suggested a few pages back,
others will appear in following pages.
Without doubt the limits of the spread of the common culture have been determined
mainly by the physiography of the country. One of the two pueblos in the area not on the
common drainage system is Lias, but Lias was largely built by a migration from Bontoc
pueblo—the hotbed of Bontoc culture. Barlig, the other pueblo not on the common
drainage system (both Barlig and Lias are on the Sibbu River), lies between Lias and the
other pueblos of the Bontoc culture area, and so naturally has been drawn in line and held
in line with the culture of the geographic area in which it is located—its institutions are
those of its environment.
The Bontoc man
Introduction
The Bontoc Igorot has been in Bontoc longer than the endurance of tradition, for he says
he never lived elsewhere, that he never drove any people out before him, and that he was
never driven; and has always called himself the “Ĭ-pu-kao′” or “Ĭ-fu-gao′”—the “people.”
This word for people survives not only throughout the Province of Bontoc but also far
toward the northern end of Luzon, where it appears as “Apayao” or “Yaos.” Bontoc
designates the people of the Quiangan region as “Ĭ-fu-gao′,” though a part of them at least
have a different name for themselves.

25. The Bontoc Igorot have their center in the pueblo of Bontoc, pronounced “Ban-tâk′,” a
Spanish corruption of the Igorot name “Fun-tâk′,” a common native word for mountain,
the original name of the pueblo. To the northwest their culture extends to that of the
historic Tinguian, a long-haired folk physiographically cut off by a watershed. To the east
of the Cordillera Central the Tinguian call themselves “Ĭt-nĕg′.” To the Page 34northeast
the Bontoc culture area embraces the pueblo of Basao, stopping short of Tinglayan. The
eastern limit of Bontoc culture is fixed by the pueblos of Lias and Barlig, and is thus
about coextensive with the province. Southward the area includes all to the top of the
watershed of Polis Mountain, which turns southward the numerous streams feeding the
Rio Magat. The pueblos south of this watershed—Lubong, Gisang, Banawi, etc.—belong
to the short-haired people of Quiangan culture. To the west Bontoc culture extends to the
watershed of the Cordillera Central, which turns westward the various affluents of the
Rio del Abra. On the southwest this cuts off the short-haired Lepanto Igorot, whose
culture seems to be more allied to that of Benguet than Bontoc.
The men of the Bontoc area know none of the peoples by whom they are surrounded by
the names history gives or the peoples designate themselves, with the exception of the
Lepanto Igorot, the Ĭt-nĕg′, and the Ilokano of the west coast. They do not know the
“Tinguian” of Abra on their north and northwest by that name; they call them “Ĭt-nĕg′.”
Farther north are the people called by the Spaniards “Nabayuganes,” “Aripas,” and
“Ipugaos;” to the northeast and east are the “Caylingas,” “Comunanges,” “Bayabonanes,”
“Dayags,” and “Gaddannes”—but Bontoc knows none of these names. Bontoc culture
and Kalinga culture lie close together on the east, and the people of Bontoc pueblo name
all their eastern neighbors Ĭt-nĕg′—the same term they apply to the Tinguian to the west
and northwest, because, they say, they all wear great quantities of brass on the arms and
legs. To the south of Bontoc are the Quiangan Igorot, the Banawi division of which, at
least, names itself May′-yo-yĕt, but whom Bontoc calls “Ĭ-fu-gao′.” They designate the
people of Benguet the “Igorot of Benguet,” but these peoples designate themselves “Ĭb-a-
loi′” in the northern part, and “Kan-ka-nay′” in the southern part, neither of which names
Bontoc knows.
She has still another set of names for the people surrounding her—people whom she
vaguely knows are there but of whom or of whose lands she has no first-hand knowledge.
The people to the north are “Am-yan′-an,” and the northern country is “La′-god.” The
“Day′-ya” are the eastern people, while “Bar′-lĭg” is the name of the eastern and
southeastern land. “Ab-a-ga′-tan” are the people of the south, and “Fi′-lĭg ab-a-ga′-tan,” is
the south land. The people of the west are “Loa′-od,” and “Fi′-lĭg lao′-od,” or “Lo′-ko”
(the Provinces of Ilokos Norte and Ilokos Sur) is the country lying to the west and
southwest.
Some of the old men of Bontoc say that in the past the Igorot people once extended to the
seacoast in the Provinces of Ilokos Norte and Ilokos Sur. This, of course, is a tradition of
the prehistoric time before the Ilokano invaded northern Luzon; but, as has been stated,
the Bontoc people claim never to have been driven by that invasion, neither have they
any knowledge of such a movement. It is not improbable, however, Page 35that traditions
of the invasion may linger with the people nearer the coast and farther north.

26. Historical sketch
It is regretted that the once voluminous historical records and data which the Spaniards
prepared and kept at Bontoc were burned—tons of paper, they say—probably late in
1898 or early in 1899 by Captain Angels, an insurrecto. However, from scanty printed
historical data, but mostly from information gathered in Bontoc from Igorot and resident
Ilokano, the following brief sketch is presented, with the hope that it will show the nature
of the outside influences which have been about Bontoc for the past half century prior to
American occupation. It is believed that the data are sufficiently truthful for this purpose,
but no claim is made for historical accuracy.
It seems that in 1665 the Spanish governor of the Philippines, Governor-General D.
Diego de Salcedo, sent an expedition from Manila into northern Luzon. Some time
during the three years the expedition was out its influence was felt in Fidelisan and
Tanolang, two pueblos in the western part of the Bontoc culture area, for history says
they paid tribute.2 It is not probable that any considerable party from the expedition
penetrated the Igorot mountain country as far as the above pueblos.
After the year 1700 expeditions occasionally reached Cayan, which, until about twenty-
five years ago, as has been stated, was a Spanish capital. In 1852 the entire territory of
present Lepanto-Bontoc and a large part of northern Nueva Vizcaya were organized as an
independent “distrito,” under the name of “Valle de Cayan;”3 and a few years later,
though the author does not give the date, Bontoc was established as an independent
“distrito.”
The Spaniards and Ilokano in and about Bontoc Province say that it was about fifty years
ago that the Spaniards first came to Bontoc. The time agrees very accurately with the
time of the establishment of the district. From then until 1899 there was a Spanish
garrison of 200 or 300 men stationed in Bontoc pueblo. Christian Ilokano from the west
coast of northern Luzon and the Christian Tagalog from Manila and vicinity were the
soldiers.
The Spanish comandante of the “distrito,” the head of the political-military government,
resided there, and there were also a few Spanish army officers and an army chaplain. A
large garrison was quartered in Cervantes; there was a church in both Bontoc and
Cervantes. In the district of Bontoc there was a Spanish post at Sagada, between the Page
36two capitals, Bontoc and Cervantes. Farther to the east was a post at Tukukan and
Sakasakan, and farther east, at Basao, there was a post, a church, and a priest.
Most of the pueblos had Ilokano presidentes. The Igorot say that the Spaniards did little
for them except to shoot them. There is yet a long, heavy wooden stock in Bontoc pueblo
in which the Igorot were imprisoned. Igorot women were made the mistresses of both
officers and soldiers. Work, food, fuel, and lumber were not always paid for. All persons
18 or more years old were required to pay an annual tax of 50 cents or an equivalent
value in rice. A day’s wage was only 5 cents, so each family was required to pay an
equivalent of twenty days’ labor annually. In wild towns the principal men were told to

27. bring in so many thousand bunches of palay—the unthreshed rice. If it was not all
brought in, the soldiers frequently went for it, accompanied by Igorot warriors; they
gathered up the rice, and sometimes burned the entire pueblo. Apad, the principal man of
Tinglayan, was confined six years in Spanish jails at Bontoc and Vigan because he
repeatedly failed to compel his people to bring in the amount of palay assessed them.
They say there were three small guardhouses on the outskirts of Bontoc pueblo, and
armed Igorot from an outside town were not allowed to enter. They were disarmed, and
came and went under guard.
The Spanish comandantes in charge of the province seem to have remained only about
two years each. Saldero was the last one. Early in the eighties of the nineteenth century
the comandante took his command to Barlig, a day east of Bontoc, to punish that town
because it had killed people in Tulubin and Samoki; Barlig all but exterminated the
command—only three men escaped to tell the tale. Mandicota, a Spanish officer, went
from Manila with a battalion of 1,000 soldiers to erase Barlig from the map; he was also
accompanied from Bontoc by 800 warriors from that vicinity. The Barlig people fled to
the mountains, losing only seven men, whose heads the Bontoc Igorot cut off and brought
home.
Comandante Villameres is reported to have taken twenty soldiers and about 520 warriors
of Bontoc and Samoki to punish Tukukan for killing a Samoki woman; the warriors
returned with three heads.
They say that in 1891 Comandante Alfaro took 40 soldiers and 1,000 warriors from the
vicinity of Bontoc to Ankiling; sixty heads adorned the triumphant return of the warriors.
In 1893 Nevas is said to have taken 100 soldiers and 500 warriors to Sadanga; they
brought back one head.
A few years later Saldero went to “clear up” rebellious Sagada with soldiers and Igorot
warriors; Bontoc reports that the warriors returned with 100 heads.
The insurrectos appeared before Cervantes two or three months after Page 37Saldero’s
bloody work in Sagada. The Spanish garrison fled before the insurrectos; the Spanish
civilians went with them, taking their flocks and herds to Bontoc. A thousand pesos was
the price offered by the Igorot of Sagada to the insurrectos for Saldero’s head when the
Philippine soldiers passed through the pueblo; but Saldero made good his escape from
Bontoc, and left the country by boat from Vigan.
The Bontoc Igorot assisted the insurrectos in many ways when they first came. About 2
miles west of Bontoc is a Spanish rifle pit, and there the Spanish soldiers, now swelled to
about 600 men, lay in wait for the insurrectos. There on two hilltops an historic sham
battle occurred. The two forces were nearly a mile apart, and at that distance they
exchanged rifle bullets three days. The Spaniards finally surrendered, on condition of safe
escort to the coast. For fifty years they had conquered their enemy who were armed only

28. with spear and ax; but the insurrectos were armed with guns. However, the really hard
pressing came from the rear—there were still the ax and spear—and few soldiers from
cuartel or trench who tried to bring food or water for the fighting men ever reported why
they were delayed.
The feeling of friendship between the Igorot and insurrectos was so strong that when the
insurrectos asked the Igorot to go to Manila to fight the new enemy (the Americans), 400
warriors, armed only with spear, battle-ax, and shield, went a three weeks’ journey to get
American heads. At Caloocan, just outside Manila, they met the American Army early in
February, 1899. They threw their spears, the Americans fired their guns—“which must be
brothers to the thunder,” the Igorot said—and they let fall their remaining weapons, and,
panic stricken, started home. All but thirteen arrived in safety. They are not ashamed of
their defeat and retreat; they made a mistake when they went to fight the Americans, and
they were quick to see it. They are largely blessed with the saving sense of humor, and
some of the warriors who were at Caloocan have been known to say that they never
stopped running until they arrived home.
When these men told their people in Bontoc what part they and the insurrectos played in
the fight against the Americans, the tension between the Igorot and insurrectos was at its
greatest. The insurrectos were evidently worse than the Spaniards. They did all the things
the Spaniards had done, and more—they robbed through falsehood. Consequently,
insurrectos frequently lost their heads.
Major Marsh went through Bontoc close after Aguinaldo in December, 1899. The Igorot
befriended the Americans; they brought them food and guided them faithfully along the
bewildering mountain trails when the insurrectos split and scattered—anywhere,
everywhere, fleeing eastward, northward, southward, in the mountains.
When Major Marsh returned through Bontoc, after following Page 38Aguinaldo into the
heart of the Quiangan area, he left in the pueblo some sixty shoeless men under a
volunteer lieutenant. The lieutenant promptly appointed an Ilokano presidente, vice-
presidente, secretary, and police force in Bontoc and also in Sagada, and when the
soldiers left in a few weeks he gave seven guns to the “officials” in Bontoc and two to
those in Sagada. A short time proved that those “officials” were untrustworthy men;
many were insurrectos who had dropped behind Aguinaldo. They persecuted the Igorot
even worse than had the insurrectos. They seemed to have the American Army behind
them—and the Igorot stood in awe of American arms.
The crisis came. An Igorot obtained possession of one of the guns, and the Ilokano chief
of police was killed and his corporal wounded.
This shooting, at the time apparently unpremeditated, but, in reality, carefully planned
and successfully executed, was the cause of the arrival in Bontoc pueblo of the first
American civilians. At that time a party of twenty Americans was at Fidelisan, a long day
northwest of Bontoc; they were prospecting and sightseeing. The Ilokano sent these men
a letter, and the Igorot sent a messenger, begging them to come to the help of the pueblo.

29. Three men went on August 27, 1900; they were Truman K. Hunt, M.D., Mr. Frank
Finley, and Mr. Riley. The disagreement was settled, and several Ilokano families left
Bontoc under the protection of Mr. Riley.
August 9, 1901, when the Board of Health for the Philippine Islands was organized, Dr.
Hunt, who had remained in Bontoc most of the preceding year, was appointed
“superintendent of public vaccination and inspection of infectious diseases for the
Provinces of Bontoc and Lepanto.” He was stationed at Bontoc. About that time another
American civilian came to the province—Mr. Reuben H. Morley, now secretary-treasurer
of the Province of Nueva Vizcaya, who lived nearly a year in Tulubin, two hours from
Bontoc. December 14 Mr. William F. Smith, an American teacher, was sent to Bontoc to
open a school.
Early in 1902 Constabulary inspectors, Lieutenants Louis A. Powless and Ernest A.
Eckman, also came. May 28, 1902, the Philippine Commission organized the Province of
Lepanto-Bontoc; on June 9 Dr. Hunt was appointed lieutenant-governor of the province.
May 1, 1903, Dr. Hunt resigned and E. A. Wagar, M.D., became his successor.
The Spaniard was in Bontoc about fifty years. To summarize the Spanish influence on the
Igorot—and this includes any influence which the Ilokano or Tagalog may have had
since they came among the people under Spanish protection—it is believed that no
essential institution of the Igorot has been weakened or vitiated to any appreciable
degree. No Igorot attended the school which the Spaniards had in Bontoc; to-day not ten
Igorot of the pueblo can make themselves understood in Spanish about the commonest
things around them. I fail to detect Page 39any occupation, method, or device of the
Igorot which the Spaniards’ influence improved; and the Igorot flatly deny any such
influence.
The Spaniard put the institution of pueblo presidente pretty well throughout the area now
in province, but the presidente in no way interferes with the routine life of the people—he
is the mouthpiece of the Government asking for labor and the daily necessities of a
nonproductive, resident foreign population.
The “tax” levied was scarcely in the nature of a modern tax; it was more the means taken
by the Spaniard to secure his necessary food. In no other way was the political life and
organization of the pueblo affected. In the realm of religion and spirit belief the surface
has scarcely been scratched. The only Igorot who became Christians were the wives of
some of the Christian natives who came in with the Spaniard, mainly as soldiers. There
are now eight or ten such women, wives of the resident Ilokanos of Bontoc pueblo, but
those whose husbands left the pueblo have reverted to Igorot faith.
In the matter of war and head-hunting the effect of the Spaniard was to intensify the
natural instinct of the Igorot in and about Bontoc pueblo. Nineteen men in twenty of
Bontoc and Samoki have taken a human head, and it has been seen under what conditions
and influences some of those heads were taken. An Igorot, whose confidence I believe I
have, an old man who represents the knowledge and wisdom of the people, told me

30. recently that if the Americans wanted the people of Bontoc to go out against a pueblo
they would gladly go; and he added, suggestively, that when the Spaniards were there the
old men had much better food than now, for many hogs were killed in the celebration of
war expeditions—and the old men got the greater part of the meat. The Igorot is a natural
head-hunter, and his training for the last sixty years seems to have done little more for
him than whet this appetite.
Somatology
Man
The Bontoc men average about 5 feet 4⅛ inches in height, and have the appearance of
being taller than they are. Again and again one is deceived by their height, and he
repeatedly backs a 5-foot-7-inch Igorot up against a 6-foot American, vainly expecting
the stature of the brown man to equal that of the white. Almost never does the Bontoc
man appear heavy or thickset, as does his brother, the Benguet Igorot—the human pack
horse seen so constantly on the San Fernando-Baguio trail—muscularly one of the most
highly developed primitive people in the world to-day
Of thirty-two men measured from Bontoc and vicinity the shortest was 4 feet 9⅛ inches
and the tallest was slightly more than 5 feet 9 Page 40inches. The following table
presents the average measurements of the thirty-two men:
Average measurements of Bontoc men
Measurements
Cm.
Stature 160.287
Spread of arms 165.684
Head length 19.212
Head breadth 15.203
Cephalic index (per cent) 79.1328
Nasal length 5.25625
Nasal breadth 4.1625
Nasal index (per cent) 79.191
From these measurements it appears that the composite man—the average of the
combined measurements of thirty-two men—is mesaticephalic. Among the thirty-two
men the extremes of cephalic index are 91.48 and 67.48. This first measurement is of a
young man between 20 and 25 years of age. It stands far removed from other
measurements, the one nearest it being 86.78, that of a man about 60 years old. The other
extreme is 67.48, the measure of a young man between 25 and 30 years of age. Among
the thirty-two men, nine are brachycephalic—that is, their cephalic index is greater than

31. 80; twenty of the thirty-two are mesaticephalic, with cephalic index between 75 and 80;
and only three are dolichocephalic—that is, the cephalic index is below 75.
The nasal indexes of the thirty-two men show that the Bontoc man has the “medium” or
mesorhine nose. They also show that one is very extremely platyrhine, the index being
104.54, and one is very leptorhine, being 58.18. Of the total, five are leptorhine—that is,
have the “narrow” nose with nasal index below 70. Seventeen men are mesorhine, with
the “medium” nose with nasal index between 70 and 85; and ten are platyrhine—that is,
the noses are “broad,” with an index greater than 85.
The Bontoc men are never corpulent, and, with the exception of the very old, they are
seldom poor. During the period of a man’s prime he is usually muscled to an excellent
symmetry. His neck, never long, is well formed and strong and supports the head in erect
position. His shoulders are broad, even, and full muscled, and with seeming ease carry
transportation baskets laden with 75 to 100 pounds. His arms are smoothly developed and
are about the same relative length as the American’s. The hands are strong and short. The
waist line is firm and smaller than the shoulders or hips. The buttocks usually appear
heavy. His legs are generally straight; the thighs and calves are those of a prime
pedestrian accustomed to long and frequent walks. The ankles are seldom thick; and the
feet are broad and relatively short, Page 41and, almost without exception, are placed on
the ground straight ahead. He has the feet of a pedestrian—not the inturned feet of the
constant bearer of heavy burdens on the back or the outturned feet of the man who sits or
stands. The perfection of muscular development of two-thirds of the men of Bontoc
between the ages of 25 and 30 would be the envy of the average college athlete in the
States.
In color the men are brown, though there is a wide range of tone from a light brown with
a strong saffron undertone to a very dark brown—as near a bronze as can well be
imagined. The sun has more to do with the different color tones than has anything else,
after which habits of personal cleanliness play a very large rôle. There are men in the
Bontoc Igorot Constabulary of an extremely light-brown color, more saffron than brown,
who have been wearing clothing for only one year. During the year the diet of the men in
the Constabulary has been practically the same as that of their darker brothers among
whom they were enlisted only twelve months ago. All the members of the Constabulary
differ much more in color from the unclothed men than the unclothed differ among
themselves. Man after man of these latter may pass under the eye without revealing a tint
of saffron, yet there are many who show it faintly. The natural Igorot never washes
himself clean. He washes frequently, but lacks the means of cleansing the skin, and the
dirtier he is the more bronze-like he appears. At all times his face looks lighter and more
saffron-tinted than the remainder of his body. There are two reasons for this—because the
face is more often washed and because of its contrast with the black hair of the head.
The hair of the head is black, straight, coarse, and relatively abundant. It is worn long,
frequently more than half way to the hips from the shoulders. The front is “banged” low
and square across the forehead, cut with the battle-ax; this line of cut runs to above and
somewhat back of the ear, the hair of the scalp below it being cut close to the head. When

32. the men age, a few gray hairs appear, and some old men have heads of uniform iron-gray
color. I have never seen a white-haired Igorot. A few of the old men have their hair
thinning on the crown, but a tendency to baldness is by no means the rule.
Bontoc pueblo is no exception to the rule that every pueblo in the Philippines has a few
people with curly or wavy hair. I doubt whether to-day an entire tribe of perfectly
straight-haired primitive Malayan people exists in the Archipelago. Fu-nĭt is a curly-
haired Bontoc man of about 45 years of age. Many people told me that his father and also
his grandfather were members of the pueblo and had curly hair. I have never been able to
find any hint at foreign or Negrito blood in any of the several curly haired people in the
Bontoc culture area whose ancestors I have tried to discover.
The scanty growth of hair on the face of the Bontoc man is pulled Page 42out. A small
pebble and the thumb nail or the blade of the battle-ax and the bulb of the thumb are
frequently used as forceps; they never cut the hair of the face. It is common to see men of
all ages with a very sparse growth of hair on the upper lip or chin, and one of 50 years in
Bontoc has a fairly heavy 4-inch growth of gray hair on his chin and throat; he is shown
in Pl. XIII. Their bodies are quite free from hair. There is none on the breast, and seldom
any on the legs. The pelvic growth is always pulled out by the unmarried. The growth in
the armpits is scant, but is not removed.
The iris of the eye is brown—often rimmed with a lighter or darker ring. The brown of
the iris ranges from nearly black to a soft hazel brown. The cornea is frequently blotched
with red or yellow. The Malayan fold of the upper eyelid is seen in a large majority of the
men, the fold being so low that it hangs over and hides the roots of the lashes. The lashes
appear to grow from behind the lid rather than from its rim.
The teeth are large and strong, and, whereas in old age they frequently become few and
discolored, during prime they are often white and clean. The people never artificially
stain the teeth, and, though surrounded by betel-nut chewers with dark teeth or red-
stained lips, they do not use the betel.
Since the Igorot keeps no record of years, it is impossible to know his age, but it is
believed that sufficient comparative data have been collected in Bontoc to make the
following estimates reliable:
At the age of 20 a man seems hardly to have reached his physical best; this he attains,
however, before he is 25. By 35 he begins to show the marks of age. By 45 most of the
men are fast getting “old”; their faces are seamed, their muscles losing form, their
carriage less erect, and the step slower. By 55 all are old—most are bent and thin.
Probably not over one or two in a hundred mature men live to be 70 years old.
The following census taken from a Spanish manuscript found in Quiangan, and written in
1894, may be taken as representative of an average Igorot pueblo:
Census of Magulang, district of Quiangan

33. Years Females Males
0 to 1 191 200
1 to 5 209 210
5 to 10 144 123
10 to 15 132 159
15 to 20 129 114
20 to 30 121 134
30 to 40 212 239
40 to 50 118 126
50 and over 79 62
Total 1,335 1,367
Page 43
From this census it seems that the Magulang Igorot man is at his prime between the ages
of 30 and 40 years, and that the death rate for men between the ages of 40 and 50 is
nearly as great as the death rate among children between 5 to 10 years of age, being 52.7
per cent. Beyond the age of 50 collapse is sudden, since all the men more than 50 years
old are less than half the number of those between the ages of 40 and 50 years.
Woman
The women average 4 feet 9⅜ inches in height. In appearance they are short and stocky.
Twenty-nine women from Bontoc and vicinity were measured; the tallest was 5 feet 4¾
inches, and the shortest 4 feet 4¾ inches. The following table presents the average
measurements of twenty-nine women:
Average measurements of Bontoc women
Measurements
Cm.
Stature 145.800
Spread of arms 149.603
Head length 18.593
Head breadth 14.706
Cephalic index (per cent) 79.094
Nasal length 4.582
Nasal breadth 3.608
Nasal index (per cent) 78.744
These measurements show that the composite woman—the average of the measurements
of twenty-nine women—is mesaticephalic. The extremes of cephalic index are 87.64 and

34. 64.89; both are measurements of women about 35 years of age. Of the twenty-nine
women twelve are brachycephalic; twelve are mesaticephalic; and five are
dolichocephalic.
The Bontoc woman has a “medium,” or mesorhine, nose, as is shown by the above
figures. Four of the twenty-nine women have the “narrow” leptorhine nose with nasal
index below 70; seven have platyrhine or the “broad” nose with index greater than 85;
while seventeen have the “medium” or mesorhine nose with nasal index between 70 and
85. The broadest nose has an index of 97.56, and the narrowest an index of 58.53.
The women reach the age of maturity well prepared for its responsibilities. They have
more adipose tissue than the men, yet are never fat. The head is carried erect, but with a
certain stiffness—often due, in part, no doubt, to shyness, and in part to the fact that they
carry all their burdens on their heads. I believe the neck more often appears short than
does the neck of the man. The shoulders are broad, and Page 44flat across the back. The
breasts are large, full, and well supported. The hips are broad and well set, and the waist
(there is no natural waist line) is frequently no smaller than the hips, though smaller than
the shoulders. Their arms are smooth and strong, and they throw stones as men do, with
the full-arm throw from the shoulder. Their hands are short and strong. Their legs are
almost invariably straight, but are probably more frequently bowed at the knees than are
the men’s. The thighs are sturdy and strong, and the calves not infrequently over-large.
This enlargement runs low down, so the ankles, never slender, very often appear coarse
and large. In consequence of this heavy lower leg, the feet, short at best, usually look
much too short. They are placed on the ground straight ahead, though the tendency to
inturned feet is slightly more noticeable than it is among the men.
Their carriage is a healthful one, though it is not always graceful, since their long strides
commonly give the prominent buttocks a jerky movement. They prove the naturalness of
that style of walking which, in profile, shows the chest thrust forward and the buttocks
backward; the abdomen is in, and the shoulders do not swing as the strides are made.
It can not be said that at base the color of the women’s skin differs from that of the men,
but the saffron undertone is more commonly seen than it is in the unclothed men. It
shows on the shaded parts of the body, and where the skin is distended, as on the breast
and about certain features of the face.
The hair of the head is like that of the man’s; it is worn long, and is twisted and wound
about the head. It has a tendency to fall out as age comes on, but does not seem thin on
the head. The tendency to gray hairs is apparently somewhat less than it is with the men.
The remainder of the body is exceptionally free from hair. The growth in the armpits and
the pelvic hair are always pulled out by the unmarried, and a large per cent of the women
do not allow it to grow even in old age.
Their eyes are brown, varied as are those of the men, and with the Malayan fold of the
upper eyelid.

35. Their teeth are generally whiter and cleaner than are those of their male companions, a
condition due largely, probably, to the fact that few of the women smoke.
They seem to reach maturity at about 17 or 18 years of age. The first child is commonly
born between the ages of 16 and 22. At 23 the woman has certainly reached her prime.
By 30 she is getting “old”; before 45 the women are old, with flat, pendent folds of skin
where the breasts were. The entire front of the body—in prime full, rounded, and
smooth—has become flabby, wrinkled, and folded. It is only a short time before collapse
of the tissue takes place in all parts of the Page 45body. An old woman, say, at 50, is a
mass of wrinkles from foot to forehead; the arms and legs lose their plumpness, the skin
is “bagged” at the knees into half a dozen large folds; and the disappearance of adipose
tissue from the trunk-front, sides, and back—has left the skin not only wrinkled but loose
and flabby, folding over the girdle at the waist.
The census of Magulang, page 42, should be again referred to, from which it appears that
the death rate among women is greater between the ages of 40 and 50 years than it is with
men, being 55.66 per cent. The census shows also that there are relatively a larger
number of old women—that is, over 50 years old—than there are old men.
Child
The death rate among children is large. Of fifteen families in Bontoc, each having had
three or more children, the death rate up to the age of puberty was over 60 per cent.
According to the Magulang census the death rate of children from 5 to 10 years of age is
63.73 per cent.
The new-born babe is as light in color as the average American babe, and is much less
red, instead of which color there is the slightest tint of saffron. As the babe lies naked on
its mother’s naked breast the light color is most strikingly apparent by contrast. The
darker color, the brown, gradually comes, however, as the babe is exposed to the sun and
wind, until the child of a year or two carried on its mother’s back is practically one with
the mother in color.
Some of the babes, perhaps all, are born with an abundance of dark hair on the head. A
child’s hair is never cut, except that from about the age of 3 years the boy’s hair is
“banged” across the forehead. Fully 30 per cent of children up to 5 or 6 years of age have
brown hair—due largely to fading, as the outer is much lighter than the under hair. In rare
cases the lighter brown hair assumes a distinctly red cast, though a faded lifeless red.
Before puberty is reached, however, all children have glossy black hair.
The iris of a new-born babe is sometimes a blue brown; it is decidedly a different brown
from that of the adult or of the child of five years. Most children have the Malayan fold
of the eyelid; the lower lid is often much straighter than it is on the average American.
When, in addition to these conditions, the outer corner of the eye is higher than the inner,
the eye is somewhat Mongolian in appearance. About one-fifth of the children in Bontoc
have this Mongolian-like eye, though it is rarer among adults—a fact due, in part,

36. apparently, to the down curving and sagging of the lower lid as one’s prime is reached
and passed.
Children’s teeth are clean and white, and very generally remain so until maturity.
The child from 1 to 3 years of age is plump and chubby; his front Page 46is full and
rounded, but lacks the extra abdominal development so common with the children of the
lowlands, and which has received from the American the popular name of “banana
belly.” By the age of 7 the child has lost its plump, rounded form, which is never again
had by the boys but is attained by the girls again early in puberty. During these last half
dozen years of childhood all children are slender and agile and wonderfully attractive in
their naturalness. Both girls and boys reach puberty at a later time than would be
expected, though data can not be gathered to determine accurately the age at puberty. All
the Ilokano in Bontoc pueblo consistently maintain that girls do not reach puberty until at
least 16 and 17 years of age. Perhaps it is arrived at by 14 or 15, but I feel certain it is not
as early as 12 or 13—a condition one might expect to find among people in the tropics.
Pathology
The most serious permanent physical affliction the Bontoc Igorot suffers is blindness.
Fully 2 per cent of the people both of Bontoc and her sister pueblo, Samoki, are blind;
probably 2 per cent more are partially so. Bontoc has one blind boy only 3 years old, but I
know of no other blind children; and it is claimed that no babes are born blind. There is
one woman in Bontoc approaching 20 years of age who is nearly blind, and whose
mother and older sister are blind. Blindness is very common among the old people, and
seems to come on with the general breaking down of the body.
A few of the people say their blindness is due to the smoke in their dwellings. This
doubtless has much to do with the infirmity, as their private and public buildings are very
smoky much of the time, and when the nights are at all chilly a fire is built in their closed,
low, and chimneyless sleeping rooms. There are many persons with inflamed and
granulated eyelids whose vision is little or not at all impaired—a forerunner of blindness
probably often caused by smoke.
Twenty per cent of the adults have abnormal feet. The most common and most striking
abnormality is that known as “fa′-wĭng”; it is an inturning of the great toe. Fa′-wĭng
occurs in all stages from the slightest spreading to that approximating forty-five degrees.
It is found widely scattered among the barefoot mountain tribes of northern Luzon. The
people say it is due to mountain climbing, and their explanation is probably correct, as
the great toe is used much as is a claw in securing a footing on the slippery, steep trails
during the rainy reason. Fa′-wĭng occurs quite as commonly with women as with men,
and in Ambuklao, Benguet Province, I saw a boy of 8 or 9 years whose great toes were
spread half as much as those shown in Pl. XXV. This deformity occurs on one or both
feet, but generally on both if at all.